valueless as a means of salvation, the other may be saving to each of us, for if we are saved it will be through our own life and not that of another.

And if you can accept this, and I believe it to be God's truth, then you cannot reject the further proposition, that a study of the Scriptures as a means of salvation-not as a matter of history-but as a means of salvation, turns the seeker after truth from the light within himself, from the law written upon his own heart, the law which has been appointed for his own government, unto what can be nothing higher than the record of perhaps a similar law unto another, and not therefore binding upon himself unless it has been similarly imposed and revealed unto him.

We are so constituted that our own knowledge of religious duty ever keeps pace with our obedience. The excellent young man Jesus, in referring to the light within us, made use of language from which an indirect though perhaps fair inference has been drawn, which I believe to be untruthful, and it seems to be necessary for me to correct it. The light within us never becomes darkness. We may turn from and cease to see it but it is still there, and it is within ourselves alone that this light can be realized or witnessed by us.

Paul through the scriptures may plant (for he has said many excellent things) and Apollos in the same way water, but God alone by this light giveth the increase. And this increase is spiritual and heart-felt and we need look for it no where else than in the heart, for it is not to be found in any thing which is less spiritual and enduring than itself. Scriptural truth can avail us nothing until it becomes spiritual truth unto ourselves, that is, recognized by our rational spirits as being truth, and it can then be received and adopted by us, not because of its being in the Scriptures but because it has become manifested unto our perceptions also. And there is life

in such revelations, and they come to every man just as naturally as does the air that we breathe, and as rapidly as there is occasion for them and he is willing to receive them, and if he will but give heed unto them he is in the way of salvation He is accepting the means which God has appointed to bring him to himself. And there is no mystery here which is beyond the human understanding, for we are not bound to go beyond this-but we are bound not to—and though we often make the attempt we as continually fail of doing it. There is a limit here which cannot be passed by us. "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever." The merely physical man, one without reason, could take no part in religion, he could know nothing of it, for religion is intellectual and spiritual in its nature.

Do not misunderstand me--.. -I am not asserting that anything supernatural is requisite in religion. It is altogether natural though it is altogether spiritual. And I assert this because a man's spirit is just as much a part of his nature as is his body. And I am here pointing each unto nothing higher than the best light that is in him. Some may feel that this with themselves is, but their reason. They may be mistaken in the name of their guide, but whether mistaken or not, if it is the best they know let them follow it, and they will find themselves as safe as the Lord can make them. They can have no higher guide than their own best perceptions, and so long as they are doing the best that they can know, they are fulfilling all that is required of them, and are just where their spiritual father designs that they shall be.

He never claimed more than this from his most exalted and enlightened servant and those may well be hopeful who thus yield themselves to his requirements.

of which the above is the literal and proper rendering. It is not Breitinger's Grabe, and it is the text followed by Charles Thompson, in his very rare translation. The Greek verb, to melt, is that used to express the founding of metal, the same which gives the name of anthracite to our hottest coal. Cannot common sense come to the rescue, as regards Christ's conception of marriage? In the first place, Matt. XIX,9 to 12, Christ announces marriage to be a perpetual obligation, as Moses had done before him. The Jewish practice had degraded it, till even Hillel the pure and devout, had lost sight of its original significance. Then said the disciples "If it be so, it is not good to marry ;" (we must indulge

the flesh, or perhaps should follow Solomon in preferring the wilderness. to an angry woman.)

It would seem as if Christ detected the first motive, and the low ideal, for he answers:

"All men cannot receive this saying, some men are born cold, in some human tyranny has annihilated the power of passion. I do not speak of them, but of those willing to restrain pure and healthy instincts for the sake of that general good, which is the kingdom of heaven."

That is, to have the highest ideal marriage possible to the largest number, let some men bear with great inconvenience, "He that is able let him receive it."

CAROLINE H. DALL.

70 WARREN AVE., BOSTON.

If

ture the senate of the United States upon the Barbarism of Slavery, many people set the whole thing down as a piece of ill-considered impertinence. What gentleman would talk about the barbarism of a practice which was approved by well-dressed men and women, and which indeed furnished them with clothes and tobacco? he had said with an humble simper that he could not fully approve the custom of holding slaves, that might have been a different matter. He would then have been let off with a quiet sneer at his mud-sill opinion. But to get up and talk about the barbarism of the best thing in the nation! no one had ever heard before of such a piece of hardihood. Barbarism! what is barbarism? Why, of course every one who is not a Greek, is a barbarian.

ner knew it. What a deep-dyed impertinence, then, for him to enter the council of Areopagus and proclaim to the assembled Greeks that what they held to be most Greek of all their institutions must needs be cut off as foreign, hurtful, in a word, barbarian. I do not wonder that the Eupatrids raved, and the polloi howled.

But the Eupatrids are humbled, and the chief-brawler of the polloi swings round a circle of infamy, and the barbarian thing has been driven across the Hellespont. No one questions the justice and wisdom of all this; but after all, did the senator use the right word? Was it the stroke of a statesman, or the dodge of a demagogue. Did he utter a true thought, or did he merely invoke passion and prejudice? Certainly the institution of slavery was no more alien to the soil

than the institution of the sabbath; yet he would hardly have ventured to speak of the barbarism of the sabbath. But you will say that I am taking things too literally, that barbarism is no longer a question of geographical boundary, in a word that whatever is foreign to truth and justice is exactly barbarian, and deserves to be branded as such before all men.

Very well. I am willing to have such an understanding. Agreed that nothing is Greek but the pure, the beautiful, the good. But now we shall need more Sumners, and yet again Sumners to denounce the very barbarism of the denouncing Sumners; for I tell you, you are all barbarians, and your Hellenic boasting is flagrant nonsense. Tu quoque ? Certainly; I make no professions; I am confessedly an oriental sinner, always dreaming of purples and Persian palaces. But you of this occidental continent, building your queer temples of plaster, and marble, and iron, and pasteboardroofing, then swearing that nothing else can ever be the pure Greek style, I tell you the structure is barbarian, yes, sirs, barbarian, and you are bar barians, and your wives are barbarian women, and your little Greeklings (as you fancy) are lusty young barbarians and nothing more. You may be Greek sometime, but now be quiet. Settle yourselves around my cushions here, and I will tell you of one or two points in which you fall short of a pure Greek standard.

In the first place, your religion, so far as you have any religion, is in great measure a bloody flagrant barbarism. It is true, you start with a correct notion, you acknowledge the value of light; but what sort of light are you permitting to your children and yourselves? You shut yourselves up in a closed chamber, murmuring,

This is the natural estate of man; there is no light here." Truly enough there is no light there. Then in your gropings you find a jewel that some good Jesus has worn upon his

breast in the sunshine, and you fall down before its dim radiance, crying, this is the light! I do not wonder that you are purblind, with such training for generations; but I say you must go out under the heavens before. you can hope for a clear vision. Many of you dare not. You have a dim foreboding of a heaven that shall belie your fancy, and so, poor moles, you burrow a little deeper. Be assured that heaven's blue is infinitely brighter than the brightest of precious stones. But I hear some of the FriendGreeks putting in a mild caveat, declaring that they go direct to the fountain of light, theirs is no mere glitter of diamonds. No, truly. But suppose we call a spade a spade, and this light of the Quaker-Greeks a Swarthmoor brick-bat. O spirit of the mighty Fox, come once more, and strip these children of thy toggery, and teach them that the light is not in the pattern of thy vestments, nor in any fashion of thine outward life, but in the open heaven, toward which thine earthly face was turned in radiant trust! Your religion is flagrantly barbarian; for it causes you to feel and act as if you were foreign to your Father's household. You do not seem at home in the universe," but, rather, you fancy yourselves chronic invalids in a great hospital, and you are continually engaged with blisters and poultices. In your maundering way, you insult your Maker with the supposition that he attempted a fair creation, and failed. Get out of this nightmare. Never mind what your priests and your oraclės say. Go instant to God, and find yourself a thorough Greek.

Then, of course, when your religion. is so bedevilled, it is not to be expected that your manners will be those of angels. And indeed they are not. Call yourselves pure Greeks! How many of you can go through to-day without snarling or back-biting, or whining, or turning a curdled face upon your neighbors? Not one in

ten thousand. But you are improving as the races run. By and by you will find out that a fellow who has perfect temper and sound principles can do any thing. Now, one drawback to your progress, is your fatal confidence that what you call your principles are all right. Get rid of this infatuation. I am not in the least discouraged when I find that real principle is more rare than otto of roses. We shall see it yet in plenty. Just now, however, you are a set of smuggling, lying, thieves. You never thought of it, perhaps; but watch yourselves a day, and you will see that I am right. It never occurred to yonder solid Quaker on the highseat that his entire competence was gained by sharp cheating, but I know it, and if you ever hear him tell his story you will see the whole delusion. But I must not overwhelm you with

fault-finding. I am full of confidence that you will some day out-grow all these barbarisms. You will gradually correct your faults of thinking and behaviour You will educate your children to a healthy, loyal love of truth in every guise; you will become ashamed of your ludicrous habits of posturing for effect; you will make tidiness, and propriety of behaviour, and affability of speech, the sweet and constant rule of the individual and the household, instead of sporting them perspiringly on public occasions, and shouting when you go home, Napoleon-like, " Off, off with these confounded trappings." In fine, my beautiful Greeks, I trust you to go on improving in your estate until we find in the humblest offices of your life a pervading grace—and lo, the rears of your dwellings will be as fair to look upon as the fronts.

PERMIT me now, my friend, to advert briefly to some of the points which have engaged our attention in the interviews we have had together. And first as to sin and its consequences. I stated that I understood the selfstyled orthodox doctrine to be, "that sin being a transgression of a law of Infinite God is an infinite offence, demanding eternal punishment." Thou admitted the proposition. I remarked, that the possibility of an infinite sin being committed by a finite being, in a fraction of time, is an absurdity in itself, and that the idea of an infinite punishment for such a transgression was altogether unreasonable, and could not be required by any just law. prove that sin, though committed in a fraction of time, is of infinite demerit, and demanding an eternity of punishment, thou stated, it might take me but a moment to do an act, or sign my name to an instrument, that would justly send me to the penitentiary for life. I replied, the illustration was not relevant-the cases were not analogous. Thou thought they were strictly so. Time not admitting

To

further discussion, we here parted. Now let us look at this matter in the light of calm and unbiassed reason. And

I. As to the analogy. So far from the cases being parallel, it is plain to me there is an infinite disparity between them. In the instance cited by thee, the transgression is of a law instituted by a finite human Power, which did not make the transgressor, is incapable of knowing the condition of his active powers, and the allowance to be made for unfavorable circumstances in the results of their exercise, and therefore awards such a penalty -if it be a just government-as, while it promotes the best interests of the culprit, will secure the community from injury by him. But in the case in question, the transgression, if consciously committed (and if not, it involves no moral guilt), is one by a finite being, of a law of an Infinite Being, who made the transgressor and endowed him with all his active powers, knowing exactly not only their legitimate action, but the results of all the circumstances that would lead them